


swipe right to catch the spirit, swipe left to go to hell

by rabiscar



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Bellarke, College, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 10:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16972560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabiscar/pseuds/rabiscar
Summary: Clarke finds Bellamy's profile on Tinder and takes it upon herself to revamp it for maximum appeal. Consider it like a community service project. She is definitely invested in his love life a normal, friendly amount. Yup.





	swipe right to catch the spirit, swipe left to go to hell

Clarke didn't mean to go looking for Bellamy's Tinder profile. She just stumbled across it while idly swiping during breakfast. It really should have been more surprising that she didn't find him sooner seeing as they lived in the same house and he fit pretty squarely into her distance restrictions.

Still it was a bit of a shock to find herself staring at his profile while he sat across from her at breakfast. She gasped and nearly dropped her phone into her cereal. 

"What?" Bellamy asked. 

"Nothing," she said as she recovered herself. 

A pause. 

"But did you seriously crop Miller out of your display picture?" 

"What?" he looked up sharply. 

Clarke smirked and turned her phone around to show him. He groaned and threw his head back.

"Do we have to do this now?" he asked. "Can't you just do the decent thing and privately judge me before swiping left?" 

"No way," Clarke shook her head and bowed to pour over his profile. 

"'Always looking for good food and outdoor adventures,'" she read aloud and then thunked his phone down on the table. 

"What the fuck?" she demanded. "You sound like you're describing a dog that's up for adoption at the SPCA." 

"I do not," he huffed and leaned across the table to swipe at her screen. 

"Too late," she said. "I already screenshotted it." 

"Clarke, come on."

"No, you come on," she said and scowled down at her phone. 

"Not only is this just sad, it's also not true. You hate the outdoors." 

"No, I don't," Bellamy argued. 

"Yes, you do," Clarke insisted. "When's the last time you were voluntarily outside?" 

Bellamy took a bite of his bagel. 

"Sometimes I hike Mount Weather," he said between chews. 

"You've hiked Mount Weather twice since you moved here and you hated it both times." 

"I didn't hate it," Bellamy protested. 

"Alright, then let's hike it tomorrow," Clarke shrugged. 

Bellamy paused and grimaced with the bagel halfway to his mouth. 

Clarke raised her eyebrows. 

"Okay, no," Bellamy muttered and continued eating.

"So we can strike the outdoor adventure thing from your profile," Clarke said, her fingers already tapping against the screen. 

"Don't strike it entirely," Bellamy said. "I played ultimate frisbee last summer."

"Bellamy, you only played because Octavia forced you to. And you swore you'd never play again." 

Bellamy snorted. 

"I didn't swear I'd never play again. You made me promise not to." 

"Ya, because playing ultimate is embarrassing, Bell. All the other sports laugh at you." 

"All the other sports laugh at me? Well in that case, you're right, I won't play any more. Wouldn't want to embarrass you in front of basketball." 

"You know what I mean. If you're trying to attract a sporty girl, she's not going to be impressed by ultimate unless she also plays ultimate."

"I'm not trying to attract anyone," Bellamy insisted. 

"Well in that case mission fucking accomplished bud, you're doing great." 

Bellamy opened and closed his mouth several times before settling on a suitable indignant outburst. 

"This is not a roast!" he half-shouted. 

"I mean, it is in the sense that I'm only saying this because I love you: you need help." 

Bellamy sighed and drummed his fingers on the table. 

"Ok, how?" he asked finally. "What's so objectionable about me?"

A look of sheer outrage flashed across Clarke's face. 

"There's nothing objectionable about you!" she protested. 

"My profile then," Bellamy amended. 

Clarke puffed air out her cheeks and took a long stare at her phone while flicking pack and forth between his pictures. 

"You're way-" she started and stopped to stare up at the ceiling. "You look better than this," she settled on, her cheeks pinking. 

"What do you mean?" Bellamy asked. "That's how I look, it's my face." 

"It's not your best face," Clarke said, prompting a quizzical look from Bellamy. 

"These pictures are fine but they're not doing you any favours," she explained. "We can do better." 

"We?" Bellamy asked. 

"Well yeah," Clarke shrugged. " who else is going to take your casual candid shots?" 

"Candid shots?" Bellamy asked. "Clarke, please don't-" 

The shutter sound went off on Clarke's phone. 

"Seriously?" Bellamy asked. 

"Yup," Clarke said before snapping another one. 

"How is this an improvement?" Bellamy asked. "I just woke up." 

"It's cute," Clarke said distractedly while studying her phone. "Bedhead is cute." 

Bellamy wrinkled his nose. 

"Is cute really what we're aiming for?"

"Yup," Clarke said again without looking up from her phone. "We're aiming for the trifecta. The goal is to show you can be cute, sexy, and handsome. Then you'll appeal to the broadest demo." 

"Maybe I have a more specific demo in mind," Bellamy said and scratched his chin. 

"Start broad and then narrow down," Clarke said. "Just like doing a lit review for a research proposal." 

"Are you trying to level with me?" Bellamy asked. 

"Just framing it in terms you can understand," Clarke grinned. 

"Ya, thanks," Bellamy said. 

"Any time." 

. . . . .

Apparently there was no shortage of opportunities for candid shots. Pretty soon, Clarke had so many pictures of Bellamy that she had to delete both Shazaam and the metro app from her phone just to house them all. 

Pictures of Bellamy buttoning the sleeves of his oxford shirt before running to present his seminar project. Pictures of Bellamy slouching around in joggers and underarmour after getting back from the gym. Pictures of Bellamy bent over a book at the café with a pen in his mouth. 

"Are you planning on opening a gallery?" Bellamy asked sardonically after Clarke snapped a photo of him taking a bite of an apple. 

"You're not giving me a lot to work with here so I had to go for quantity over quality. Think of it like playing the lottery: the more tickets you buy, the greater your chances." 

"Chances of what exactly in this case?" 

"Of not looking like a miserable troll," Clarke answered. 

"Have you considered maybe giving me a warning so I'm not balls deep in fruit at the moment you take the picture?" 

Clarke sighed and clapped him on the shoulder. 

"No." 

. . . . .

"Well this is frightening," Miller said when he saw the photo gallery on Clarke's phone. 

Clarke snatched her phone out of his hands and tapped the screen viciously to lock it. 

"Its for Tinder," she huffed and rolled her eyes. 

"You're catfishing people on Tinder with pictures of Bellamy?" Miller asked. "And hey, I actually needed that," he gestured to her phone. "I want to send Monty your picture of the WiFi password." 

Clarke traced out her lock screen pattern and pushed her phone back into Miller's hands. 

"I'm not catfishing," she explained while he scrolled through her gallery. "I'm renovating his profile." 

"Huh," Miller said as he finally reached the picture he needed. "Is this some kind of misguided attempt to prove how over him you are?" 

"What?" Clarke asked. "No," she shook her head. "That doesn't even make sense. I was never under him." 

Miller smirked. 

"You sure about that?" he asked and handed her phone back to her. 

"Yes, Nathan. I'm pretty fucking sure." 

"Alright," he shrugged. "Just seems like a disproportionate amount of interest in his love life for someone who was never under him."

"He's my friend, of course I'm interested in his love life. I want him to find someone." 

"Okay," Miller shrugged. "Just know that it comes across as a little 'the lady doth protest too much'-ish." 

"Well said," Clarke nodded. 

"I have a way with words," Nathan agreed. "By the way- don't you think people will find it a little weird that he's alone in every picture?" 

"What do you mean?" Clarke asked. 

"All of these are portrait style-" Nate pointed to her phone. "There's none of him with his friends." 

Clarke chewed her lip and looked down at her screen. 

"Okay, fair," she conceded as she flicked through the photos. "Does that mean you'll come upstairs to pose in a photo with him?" she asked. 

"Not a chance."

. . . . .

"Rae!" Clarke called out. 

"In the kitchen!" Raven hollered back. 

"Hey," Clarke popped her head in the door. "I have a favour to ask you." 

"No," Raven said without hesitation.

"You don't even know what it is yet!" 

"Don't have to, your favour requests always suck.' 

"This one's easy," Clarke said. "You just have to come upstairs and pose in a casual group shot with Bellamy." 

"Gross, why?" 

"It's for his tinder profile. We need to let everyone know he actually has friends."

"What?" Raven asked. "You're still doing that?" 

"Ya and we're almost done," Clarke said. "I really think this last picture is the missing piece that will help us crack Tinder's logarithm."

"Oh jesus," Raven muttered and fiddled with the filter in a hand drip coffee rig she was building herself. 

"I can't right now," she said. "I'm a little busy with my problem sets for phys." 

"Yeah, you look really busy with phys," Clarke said and raised her eyebrows at the mess on the counter. 

"It's part of the process!" Raven insisted. "Can't you just get Miller to pose with him?"

"Nope," Clarke answered. "Miller refuses to participate. He thinks I'm in love with Bellamy and over-compensating by pimping out his profile to prove my indifference," she explained with a roll of the eyes.

"Oh," Raven said and placed her mug carefully under the filter. "Is that not what's going on here?" 

"No!" Clarke looked up in surprise. "Is that really what you guys think?" 

Raven refused to meet her eye. 

"I mean, if the shoe fits," she shrugged, just a little too focused on her coffee. 

"It doesn't," Clarke sighed and hoisted herself up to sit on the counter. "I'm not trying to seem like I don't care about Bellamy. It's the opposite of that. Of course I care about Bellamy. It's just that he has so much to offer but you'd never know it from his profile. His shitty pictures and description don't do him any justice." 

"Well, ya- how can they?" Raven asked. "His profile's just an introduction, you've known him for 3 years. There's no substitute for that." 

"I know," Clarke sighed. "I just want to give people a better idea of who he is. I want them to be able to see him like I do." 

Raven paused for a long moment, finally stilling her hands on the hand-drip rig to look Clarke in the eye for the first time.

"You know that's literally impossible, right?" 

"What do you mean?" Clarke asked. "Why would that be impossible? Everybody loves Bellamy." 

"Yes," Raven said gently. "But not the way you do." 

Clarke scowled and opened her mouth to protest but Raven had already scooped her coffee mug off the island and started making her way towards the door. She paused to pat Clarke's shoulder on the way out. 

"Just think about it." 

. . . . .

Just as Clarke never planned to find Bellamy on Tinder, she never thought they'd hook up during one of their very literal Netflix and chill nights either.

"Come here," Clarke said and shifted over on the couch to lean against his shoulder. 

"What?" he asked, glancing away from the TV to look at her. 

She stretched out her arm and snapped a selfie of the two of them. 

"Stop," Bellamy protested and palmed the back of her phone. "I swear to god Clarke, if you don't give this whole tinder thing a rest, I'm going to toss my own phone in the toilet." 

"Gross. At least tell me you'll drown it in the tank and not the actual bowl." 

"No promises." 

The shutter sound went off again. 

"Clarke!" he growled and reached across her to snatch the phone out of her hands. 

"Don't!" Clarke protested as he crowded over her and started trying to wrest the phone out of her grip. 

"It's not for tinder! Its for me!" she insisted and tried to squirm out from under him. 

He paused. 

"Let's see."

"What?" 

"Let me see," he demanded. 

He was still halfway into her lap with his arm leaned against the back of the couch next to her head. 

She moved the phone from the clutches of her chest to turn it towards him. He squinted down at it. 

It was a good picture. They were squashed together on the couch happy, and teasing, and silly, and it was just so them. 

The Bellamy in real life softened slightly at the picture on the screen. 

"Send it to me," is all he said. 

"Okay," Clarke nodded. He was still leaned over her. 

"And Clarke," he said. "Just delete the other ones okay? I don't need them." 

"Why?" she blurted out. 

"I deleted Tinder," he said and ducked his head a little. "Like, ages ago. I didn't even know my card was still on there." 

"You didn't?" she frowned. 

"Nope," he shook his head. "Remember how I said I had a more specific demo in mind?" 

She nodded. 

"I meant really specific," he said and squeezed her side. 

Her eyes widened in realization and then she quickly narrowed them again. 

"Wait, you're confessing?" 

"Uh," he squinted at her expression. "Yes. Definitely yes." 

"I was about to confess!" Clarke exclaimed.

"You were?!" he grinned.

"Yes!" she poked him in the chest. "I had this whole speech ready about how I didn't want to post the pictures to Tinder because I wanted to be the only girl with your pictures on her phone." 

"I mean, you certainly have a lot of them," Bellamy said. 

"Yeah, well I like you a lot," she answered. 

He grinned again and leaned in to kiss her, a brief, excited smack on the lips. 

"You do?" he asked, still smiling and leaned into her with their noses touching. 

"Yes," she laughed and tangled her hands in his hair to pull him in for another kiss. 

"I really do."


End file.
